Fanxiang S770 1TB Review — PCIe 4.0 NVMe with DRAM Cache (2026)

Posted on by Raymond Chen

Quick answer

The Fanxiang S770 1 TB is the right pick for a buyer who wants flagship-adjacent sequential speeds at a budget price and can tolerate a support and quality-control lottery.

Read: 7300 MB/s Write: 5400 MB/s Endurance: 700 TBW Warranty: 5 years Interface: M.2 4.0 x 4

The Fanxiang S770 1 TB is a PCIe 4.0 drive that looks like a flagship on paper but comes with the kind of quality-control asterisks that make a buyer pause — here is what you actually get.

Fanxiang S770 1TB Review — PCIe 4.0 NVMe with DRAM Cache

Controller & Memory

Under the sticker, the S770 runs an InnoGrit IG5236 (Rainier) controller — the same quad-core ARM design found in several enthusiast PCIe 4.0 drives — paired with a dedicated DDR4 DRAM cache. The NAND is YMTC 128-layer TLC built on the company's Xtacking 2.0 process. It is a double-sided M.2 2280 PCB, so clearance in thin laptops is worth checking, though Fanxiang ships the drive with a heatsink, thermal pads, and even a small screwdriver in the box.

The 1 TB variant is the entry point of the S770 stack, which also includes 2 TB and 4 TB capacities. Crucially, the 1 TB model's sequential write speed is 5,400 MB/s — not the 6,800 MB/s figure that gets quoted for the 2 TB version. The read speed sits at 7,300 MB/s across all capacities, and all three share the same IG5236-plus-DRAM architecture, so the core performance profile is consistent.

This drive competes in the crowded budget-to-mid-range PCIe 4.0 segment alongside the Silicon Power US75, Team Group MP44L, and Kingston NV3. The S770's selling point is raw sequential throughput at a low price. The trade-off — and it is a meaningful one — is that Fanxiang has a documented pattern of swapping NAND and controller revisions between production batches without notice. The drive you buy today may not match the drive a reviewer tested six months ago.

S770 Performance & Benchmarks

The S770 1 TB is rated for 7,300 MB/s sequential reads and 5,400 MB/s sequential writes over PCIe 4.0 x4, with random IOPS in the neighbourhood of 860,000 reads and 675,000 writes. Those numbers put it in the same postcode as first-wave PCIe 4.0 flagships — impressive for a budget-brand drive, though the gap between rated and sustained performance matters here.

Performance comparison

Fanxiang S770 1 TB vs M.2 4.0 x 4 peers

Switch between sequential throughput and random IOPS to see how this drive stacks up against other M.2 4.0 x 4 SSDs in our database. The highlighted bar is the drive on this page — click any other bar to open that drive.

  • Patriot Viper PV593 1 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
  • Patriot Viper PV593 2 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
  • Patriot Viper PV593 4 TB: 14,500 MB/s read, 14,000 MB/s write
  • Patriot Viper PV573 2 TB: 14,000 MB/s read, 12,000 MB/s write
  • Fanxiang S770 1 TB (this drive): 7,300 MB/s read, 5,400 MB/s write

Like most modern NVMe drives, the S770 uses a pseudo-SLC write cache to hit its advertised speeds. Once that cache fills — on the 1 TB model, independent testing suggests roughly 340 GB of cache capacity — write performance drops to native TLC speed, which is substantially lower. For a typical gaming or boot-drive workload this is invisible; the cache recovers during idle periods and most transfers are well under the cache threshold. For sustained large-file workflows like 4K video ingest or multi-hundred-gigabyte game library migrations, the post-cache dip is noticeable. This is not unique to the S770 — it is standard NVMe behaviour — but it is worth knowing if your workload involves frequent large transfers.

Fanxiang S770 vs Competitors

See how the S770 stacks up against other M.2 4.0 x 4 drives in our database:

Endurance, TBW & Warranty

Fanxiang backs the S770 1 TB with a 5-year warranty capped at 700 TBW of endurance. At a typical consumer workload of 30 GB per day, that works out to roughly 64 years before hitting the TBW ceiling — the warranty period will expire long before the endurance budget does. The MTBF is rated at 2 million hours, though like all MTBF figures this is a population-level statistic, not a per-drive lifespan prediction. The practical warranty concern is not the numbers on the spec sheet but Fanxiang's support track record: multiple user reports describe unresponsive customer service and warranty claims that went unanswered until Amazon intervened. For a drive storing irreplaceable data, that support gap matters more than the TBW rating.

Fanxiang S770 1 TB Specifications

Category Value
Capacity [?] 1 TB
Interface [?] M.2 4.0 x 4
Controller [?] Innogrit IG5236
Memory type [?] YMTC 128-l TLC
DRAM [?] Yes
Read speed (MB/s) [?] 7300
Write speed (MB/s) [?] 5400
Read IOPS [?] 860000
Write IOPS [?] 675000
Endurance (TBW) [?] 700
MTBF (million hours) [?] 2000000
Warranty (years) [?] 5

Verdict: Is the S770 Worth It in 2026?

The Fanxiang S770 1 TB is the right pick for a buyer who wants flagship-adjacent sequential speeds at a budget price and can tolerate a support and quality-control lottery. It belongs in a gaming rig or as a fast secondary drive where the data is backed up elsewhere. Buyers who value long-term reliability, consistent component sourcing, and reachable warranty support should stretch to a Silicon Power US75 or Kingston NV3 instead — both offer comparable performance from companies with established RMA pipelines. The S770 is a capable drive let down by the company behind it.

+ Pros

  • 7,300 MB/s sequential reads on PCIe 4.0
  • Dedicated DDR4 DRAM cache, not HMB
  • Includes heatsink, pads, and screwdriver in the box
  • 5-year warranty with 700 TBW endurance on the 1 TB model

- Cons

  • NAND and controller revisions swapped between production batches without notice
  • Customer support is effectively unreachable for warranty claims per user reports
  • Double-sided PCB may not fit thin laptops
  • YMTC 128L TLC has a history of forum-reported corruption issues
  • 1 TB write speed (5,400 MB/s) is a step down from the 2 TB variant (6,800 MB/s)

3.8 / 5 · 22 votes

Buy this or similar SSD Storage:

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Video Review

Fanxiang m.2 SSD - Worth it?

Frequently Asked Questions

Yes. The S770 uses a dedicated DDR4 DRAM cache paired with the InnoGrit IG5236 controller, which is a meaningful advantage over DRAM-less HMB designs at this price point. DRAM allows the controller to store the logical-to-physical mapping table on the drive itself rather than borrowing system memory, which improves sustained random I/O consistency and reduces latency under mixed workloads.

Physically and electrically, yes — the S770 is a PCIe 4.0 x4 M.2 2280 drive that meets Sony's 5,500 MB/s recommended sequential read floor. However, the drive is double-sided, and the PS5's M.2 bay has limited clearance for double-sided PCBs. The included heatsink helps thermally but adds height — you will need to verify the total assembly thickness against Sony's published 11.25 mm maximum. Several Amazon reviewers report successful PS5 use at measured speeds around 6,540 MB/s, so it works, just measure first.

The 1 TB variant is rated for 700 TBW, which is in line with other TLC-based PCIe 4.0 drives at this capacity. At a typical consumer write load of 30 GB per day, that endurance budget would take over 60 years to exhaust — the 5-year warranty will expire first. The 2 TB model doubles endurance to 1,400 TBW.

The IG5236 controller is known to run warm under sustained load, and the double-sided PCB with YMTC NAND concentrates heat on both sides of the board. Fanxiang includes a heatsink in the box, and you should use it — especially in a desktop with limited airflow or inside a PS5 where ambient temperatures are already elevated. Without a heatsink, the controller may throttle during extended sequential transfers.

Both are PCIe 4.0 drives in the budget-to-mid-range tier with DRAM caches and rated reads in the 7,000+ MB/s range. The US75 uses a Phison E18 controller with Micron TLC, which has a longer and more consistent track record than the IG5236-YMTC pairing in the S770. Silicon Power also has a functioning RMA process in Western markets, whereas Fanxiang's support is frequently described as unresponsive. The S770 undercuts the US75 on price, but the US75 wins on predictability.

For a gaming drive, the S770 is more than fast enough. DirectStorage workloads and game load times benefit from the 7,300 MB/s sequential reads and low access latency of the DRAM-backed controller, and the difference between this and a PCIe 5.0 drive in real-world game loads is negligible. The caveat is reliability: if this is your only drive and contains saves you care about, the documented failure rate and poor support infrastructure make it a riskier pick than established brands.

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